The Books of Jacob

by Olga Tokarczuk

  Here the little streets create a circuitous tangle in which a person not paying close attention to where they are going will easily get lost. The better-off have their stalls and shops on these streets, their storerooms extending deep into the buildings and even crossing into the apartments where the merchants keep their families and most valuable goods. The narrow streets are often roofed, which makes the city resemble a real labyrinth, in which many visitors have gone astray before finding themselves back in territory they have already explored. Almost nothing grows here; in places without a house or a temple, the earth is dry and rocky, covered in trash, rotting waste that dogs and birds dig through, battling each other over every bite.

  Smyrna is filled with Jews from Poland who have come for charity—since they have known only poverty where they come from—or for business deals, whether smaller ones that can be counted in a couple of pieces of gold or big ones there aren’t enough sacks for. They roam, they make inquiries, they strike their deals, and it does not occur to some of them to go back home. The Smyrna Jews look down on them, don’t understand their language and communicate with them instead in Hebrew (if they can) or in Turkish. The new arrivals can be recognized by their warmer clothing, which is dirty, frayed at the hem, often in poor condition that reflects their having crossed a sizable swath of the world. Now this clothing is disheveled and undone in places—it’s too hot for it.

  Some of the wealthy Podolian merchants maintain agents here—to turn around the merchants’ wares, lend and borrow money, issue guarantees of travel, and maintain the entire business in the proprietors’ absence.

  Many of them, most of them, are followers of Sabbatai Tzvi. They don’t even hide it, and openly proclaim their Messiah without fear of persecution here in Turkey, since the sultan tolerates different religions as long as they do not get too intrusive. These Jews are already somewhat acclimated to their new home; they have even grown slightly Turkish in their aspects, and their demeanor is free. Some, less sure of themselves, still dress in the old Jewish way, and yet from their homespun Podolian garments something foreign, something colorful, now protrudes—an ornate bag or a fashionably trimmed beard, or maybe Turkish shoes made of kid leather. And just like that, faith manifests itself in clothing. But it is also well known that many of those who still look like the truest Jews are in the sway of Sabbatian ideas.

  Nahman and Reb Mordke are friendly with all of them, because it’s easy to talk to them, and they see this great vibrant world in similar ways. Recently they came across Nussen, who, like them, comes from Podolia, and who navigates Smyrna better than any native.

  One-eyed Nussen, the son of the saddler and harness-maker Aron of Lwów, buys up delicate dyed kidskin with patterns embossed in it; he packs up this leather and organizes its transport to the north. Some of it he leaves in Bucharest, Vidin, Giurgiu, some of it he sends onward to Poland. To Lwów he sends exactly enough to keep his sons’ workshop in business—they will turn the kidskin into book covers, wallets, purses. Nussen is fidgety, agitated, and he speaks quickly, mixing several languages at once. In the rare moments when he smiles, he reveals even, snow-white teeth—it is a very special sight, and his face becomes beautiful then. He knows everyone here. He deftly moves between stalls, down the narrow streets, avoiding the carts and the donkeys. His one weakness is women. He can’t resist a single one, which means he’s always getting into trouble and is unable to save the money to ever go back home.

  Thanks to Nussen, Reb Mordke and Nahman find Isohar of Podhajce. Nussen takes them both to him, proud to know the wise man personally.

  Isohar’s school is a two-story building in a Turkish district, narrow and tall. Inside the cool courtyard, a little orange tree grows, and past that is a grove of old olive trees, in the shade of which vagrant dogs often come to sit. They get chased out, stones thrown at them. They’re all yellow, as if they all come from the same family, born of a single canine Eve. They leave the shade reluctantly, regarding humans as eternal sources of distress.

  Inside, it’s cool and gloomy. Isohar greets Reb Mordke heartily, his chin trembling with emotion. The two old men, slightly hunched over, hold on to each other’s arms and circle, as if celebrating the dance of the white clouds that hang from their lips in the guise of beards. They step around each other, similar in appearance, though Isohar is smaller and paler—you can tell he rarely ventures into the sun.

  The newcomers receive a room to sleep in, just big enough for two. Reb Mordke’s renown gets conferred upon Nahman, and he is treated with great respect. At last he can get a full night’s sleep on clean and comfortable linens.

  The neophytes sleep on the ground downstairs, in a row, more or less like at the Besht’s in Międzybóż. The kitchen is in the courtyard. Water is retrieved by means of giant jugs dipped into the Jewish well in the other courtyard.

  In the study room, there is always such a clamor that it resembles a bazaar—except that here the business at hand is of another sort. It’s never clear who is a teacher and who is a student. Learn from the young, the inexperienced, those who remain untarnished by books—that is Reb Mordke’s counsel. Isohar takes it a step further—though he remains the axis of this sanctuary, and it is around him that everything turns, this beth midrash nonetheless works more like an anthill or a beehive, and if it is overseen by a queen, she can only be Wisdom. A young person has many freedoms here. He has the right and the obligation to ask questions; there are no stupid questions, and each must be considered properly.

  The same discussions take place here as in Lwów or in Lublin, just the circumstances and the surroundings have changed—here it happens not in a damp hut filled with smoke, not in the beth midrash room on the floor covered in sawdust that smells of pine trees, but rather under the open sky, on warmed stones. In the evenings, the men get drowned out by cicadas, so that you have to raise your voice to speak clearly and be understood.

  Isohar teaches that there are three paths toward spiritualization. The first is the broadest and the simplest. This path is followed, for example, by Muhammadan ascetics. They’ll seize any possible ploy to kick out all natural forms—meaning all the images of the earthly world—from their souls. This is because such images interfere with the forms that are properly spiritual—when such a form appears in the soul, it must be kept separate and thus nurtured in the imagination until it occupies the entire soul; in this way, we become capable of prophecy. For example, they will ceaselessly repeat the name Allah, Allah, Allah, and so on, endlessly, until that word occupies the whole of their minds—they call this “extinguishing.”

  The second is the philosophical path, and it has a sweet scent to our reason. It consists in the student’s acquiring knowledge in some field, for example in mathematics, and then in others, until finally he reaches theology. Any subject he has penetrated and that his human reason has mastered will come to dominate him, while to him it will seem that he is an expert in each of these disciplines. He’ll begin to understand complicated connections and be convinced that this is the result of a broadening and deepening of his human knowledge. But he will not realize that it is the letters grasped by his mind and imagination that are acting upon him in this way, ordering his mind with their movements, opening the door to inexpressible spiritualization.

  The third path consists in Kabbalist shuffling, pronouncing and counting of letters, which leads to true spirituality. This path is the best, and besides, it also gives great pleasure, since by traveling it one can commune with the very essence of creation and get to know who God really is.

  It isn’t easy to calm down after these kinds of conversations, and once he has smoked one last pipe with Reb Mordke, Nahman sees, just before he falls asleep, strange images of hives of luminous bees or of shadowy figures from which other figures emerge. Illusions. He can’t sleep, and his sleeplessness intensifies this heat he’s never known before, to which people from the north, like him, have trouble growing accustomed. Nahman sits many times by himself at night on th
e edge of the trash heap and looks at the starry sky. The first thing every neophyte must understand is that God, whatever he is, has nothing in common with humankind, and that he remains so far away as to be completely inaccessible to the human senses. The same is true of his intentions. At no point will people ever learn what he is up to.

  Of Jacob the simpleton and taxes

  Already as they were on their way here they heard of Jacob from fellow travelers, that he was a student of Isohar’s who was famous amongst the Jews, though it was not yet clear exactly why. Was it his cleverness and his strange behavior, which broke every rule known to man? Or perhaps his wisdom, uncommon in such a young person? Apparently he considered himself to be a simpleton, and he had people call him that—am ha’aretz, simpleton, or, in his version, amuritz. There were rumors he was a freak. It was said that when he was around fifteen years old, back in Romania, he dropped by the inn where duty was collected from the sale of goods, and, sitting down at a table, ordered wine and food, took out some sort of paperwork, and demanded that both goods and duty be brought straight to him. He listed these meticulously and took the money for himself. He would have gone to jail had some wealthy woman not interceded on his behalf, putting the stunt down to youthful folly; under her protection, he was dealt with very mildly.

  Everyone listens to this story and smiles approvingly, patting one another on the back. Reb Mordke likes it, too, but Nahman sees the man’s behavior as improper, and to tell the truth, he is surprised that not only Reb Mordke, but also the others are chuckling contentedly.

  “Why does this delight you all so much?” he asks, annoyed.

  Reb Mordke stops laughing and glares at him.

  “Why don’t you think about what’s good about that story,” he says, and reaches calmly for his pipe.

  To Nahman it is clear that this Jacob deceived people and took money from them that did not belong to him.

  “Why are you on their side?” asks Reb Mordke.

  “Because I also have to pay a head tax, although I’ve done nothing wrong. So I feel sorry for those people who lost what rightfully belonged to them. When the real collector comes, they’ll have to pay all over again.”

  “And what is it you suppose they’re paying for?”

  “What do you mean?” Nahman is surprised by what his master is saying. “What do you mean, what for?” He has no words, so obvious is the answer to him.

  “You pay for being Jewish. You live by the grace of the lords, the king. You pay your taxes, but when an injustice befalls you, no lord and no king is going to intercede on your behalf. Is it written somewhere that your life must cost money? That your year or your month has a price, and that every day of yours can be converted into gold?” says Reb Mordke, methodically filling his pipe.

  This gives Nahman much more food for thought than the theological disputations. How did it happen that some have to pay while others collect? Where did it come from that certain people have such an amount of land they can’t even traverse it all, while others have only a little plot, paying so much in rent they can’t even afford a loaf of bread?

  “It was given to them by their mothers and fathers,” he says without conviction when, on the following day, they return to the conversation. He already knows where Reb Mordke’s argumentation will head.

  “And where did their parents get it?” asks the old man.

  “From their parents?” says Nahman, but then he breaks off. He is starting to see how this whole conceptual machinery operates, so he goes on, becoming his own interlocutor. “Or they did favors for the king and got land in exchange for them. Or they purchased the land and now pass it down to their descendants—”

  An ardent Nussen interrupts him mid-phrase:

  “Seems to me land oughtn’t to be sold or purchased. Just like water and air. Nor do people deal in fire. Those are things given to us by God, not to each of us individually, but to all of us together. Like the sky and the sun. Does the sun belong to anyone? Do the stars?”

  “No, they don’t, because they have no use value. Whatever a person can profit from must be someone’s property . . . ,” Nahman tries.

  “You’re telling us the sun has no use!” cries Yeruhim. “If the hands of the greedy could only reach it, they would slice it into pieces, lock it in a vault, and sell it off when the right time rolled around.”

  “And yet the earth is carved up like the corpse of an animal, taken over, watched, guarded,” Reb Mordke mutters to himself, but his attention is increasingly consumed by the pipe, and everyone knows that he is about to float away into that gentle ecstasy in which “tax” becomes an incomprehensible word.

  The subject of taxes in Nahman’s tale has stirred up a lot of emotions among his Rohatyn audience, and now Nahman must wait to continue, since they have begun to talk amongst themselves.

  They offer each other all sorts of warnings, for example not to do business with “those other Jews,” for no good can come of it. Everyone knows what happened with Rabbi Isaac Babad of Brody, who misappropriated municipal money. And how can anyone afford the taxes here? They’re too high, and they’re applied to everything, so that it stops making sense to ever do anything at all. It would be better to lie down and sleep from morning to night, watch the clouds float over the sky and listen to the chatter of the birds. Christian merchants don’t have such troubles, the taxes they pay are reasonable enough, and the Armenians have it a lot easier since they, too, are Christians. That’s why the Poles and the Ruthenians consider Armenians their own kind, although those gathered in the Shorrs’ home would disagree. The mind of an Armenian is impenetrable, wily, and deceitful. An Armenian can even talk a Jew into voluntarily doing something that is against his own interests. Everyone goes along with them because they seem so nice, but in reality, they’re slippery as snakes. Meanwhile, the Jewish community has to pay higher and higher tributes, and the kahal has gone into debt from paying the head tax for Jews who couldn’t pay it themselves. And so the richest rule, and their sons and grandsons follow suit. They give their daughters in marriage to other men in the clan, and in this way, their capital remains intact.

  Is it possible to avoid paying taxes somehow? To escape the entire construct? If you try to be honest and respect the order of things, the rules will betray you right away. Was it not just resolved in Kamieniec to throw all of the Jews out of town over the course of a single day? And now they cannot settle within six miles of it. What can you do with something like that?

  “Our house had just been painted,” says the wife of Yeruhim, whose business is vodka, “and I had a lovely little garden.”

  The woman starts to cry, mostly for the lost parsley and cabbage, which had been flourishing. The parsley was as thick as a hardy man’s thumb, the cabbage the size of an infant’s head. She wasn’t even allowed to take that with her. The comparison to an infant’s head effects a mysterious result—other women start to cry as well, so they pour themselves a dash of vodka, and, still sniffling, they are soothed, and then they go back to their work, to darning or plucking goose down, since their hands ought never to be idle.

  Of Nahman’s appearance to Nahman, or: The pit of darkness and the seed of light

  Nahman sighs, which silences the animated crowd. The most important part is coming now—everyone can tell. They freeze mid-motion, as though before a revelation.

  The modest business interests of Nahman and Mordechai are not going particularly well in Smyrna. Too much of their time is taken up by the business of God; investing time in formulating questions, in thinking—these are expenses. And since every answer raises new questions, the expenses relentlessly increase, and their interests founder. There is always a shortfall when they do the accounts, more on the “owed” side than on the “received.” One thing’s for sure: If there were a trade in questions, Nahman and Mordechai would earn a fortune in it.

  Sometimes his young disciples send Nahman out to battle someone in a disputation. He’s the best at this and can beat a
nyone. Many of the Jews and Greeks, eager to debate, provoke the neophytes. It’s a form of streetfighting—the opponents sit opposite one another, and around them gathers a crowd. The challenger chooses the topic—it actually doesn’t matter what he picks, the point is to see who can present his arguments in such a way as to make his opponent bend in the face of them, render him unable to counter. The loser of these competitions pays up, or buys dinner and wine. That turns into the occasion for the next disputation, and that’s how things keep going. Nahman always wins, which means they never go to bed hungry.

  “One afternoon, when Nussen and I were looking for someone for me to battle, I stayed out in the street, as I preferred to watch the knife sharpeners, the fruit sellers, the pomegranate-juice squeezers, the street musicians, and the swirling and omnipresent crowd. I squatted down by the donkeys, in their shade, as the heat was severe. At some point, I noticed that out of the crowd some person or other had emerged and was heading toward the door of the home where Jacob lived. It took a moment, several heartbeats, for me to comprehend who it was I was seeing, although almost immediately he had struck me as familiar somehow. I looked up at him from where I squatted as he went to Jacob’s door dressed in his fustian kapota, the same kind I had back in Podolia. I saw his profile, the straggly stubble on his cheeks, his skin mottled with freckles, his red hair . . . Suddenly he turned to me, and that’s when I recognized him. He was me!” Nahman falls silent for a moment, just to be able to hear the astonished or suspicious cries:

  “What do you mean? What does that mean?”

  “That’s a bad omen.”

  “That is an omen of death, Nahman.”

  Not paying attention to this, he continues:

  “It was hot, and the heat made the air sharp as knives. I felt weak, and my heart seemed to be hanging from the thinnest of threads. I wanted to get up, but I had no power over my own legs. Feeling I was dying, all I could do was cling to the donkey, who—I remember this—looked at me in surprise at this sudden surge of tenderness.”